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Even in the post-Gregg Troy era, the ties between the Bolles School in Jacksonville and the University of Florida remain strong. The latest swimmer to make the leap from the former to the latter is rising Bolles senior Leah DeGeorge, who has verbally committed as part of the Gators’ high school class of 2024.
Recently-retired Olympic coach Gregg Troy’s previous job before taking over the mantle as the Florida head coach was as the head coach at Bolles: one of the top high school programs in the nation. New women’s head coach Jeff Poppell continues that tradition (he spent 13 years coaching at Bolles), and has continued the recruiting pipeline as well.
DeGeorge is primarily a distance freestyler and is the defending Florida 1A (small schools) State Champion in the 500 yard free. She’s placed no lower than 6th at that meet throughout her career.
Best Times in Yards:
- 100 free – 53.71
- 200 free – 1:51.29
- 500 free – 4:49.78
- 1000 free – 10:06.95
- 1650 free – 16:47.04
DeGeorge has also been as good, if not better, in long course to this point of her career: she has bests of 8:57.95 in the 800 free and 16:59.02 in the 1500 free. That time in the 1500 ranked her 12th nationally among 15-16 girls.
Florida is developing the best women’s distance group in the SEC – and they’re young, too. Last season, freshman Leah Braswell won the SEC title in the mile (15:53.54) and sophomore Taylor Ault finished 2nd (16:00.52). This has been a strength of the Gators for decades, and under Poppell they’re mirroring the continued tradition with distance free as they are with Bolles recruits.
DeGeorge is already within 2 seconds of scoring in the women’s mile at SECs, and within 3 seconds in the 500.
She will be joined in the fall of 2020 at Florida by high school teammate Carly Schwab, Amanda Ray, Cecilia Porter, Chloe Grimme, Kenady Beil, Lain Shahboz, Louise Lefebvre, and Madison Kolessar.
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